What Dreams May Come
by meganechan720
Summary: What if there had been five?
1. Splinter

Splinter never woke up screaming from nightmares. His sons did, more and more often now. They had been thrust into a life of violence too early, and though they could keep a stiff upper lip during the day, at night they were forced to face their fears, and Splinter was up at least once a week helping one or another of his sons calm themselves enough to sleep. They thought that because he never awoke with terror on his lips that he did not have nightmares at all.

He thought he might prefer the screaming.

At least then he might be able to sort out reality from the dream world more thoroughly. From what he could gather, most of his sons' worst dreams were about events that had happened to them, enemies they had fought, battles fresh in their minds or ones long over. He thought it might be a comfort to go from the frenetic madness of the battlefield to the calm quiet of his room. That way he would know the dream for what it was.

His own dreams were more subtle than that.

The worst one, the one that had him up tonight meditating at three o'clock in the morning, was almost more a memory than a dream, and that was the most horrifying thing about it.

It was really a simple dream. It consisted only of himself, gathering up his four sons and placing them in a coffee can. The main difference between the dream and the memory was that these turtles were not the tiny red-eared sliders he had found fifteen years ago, but his sons as he knew them now: proud, strong warriors who trusted him and called him father. That was the only difference. The color of the can, the stench of the sewer, the feel of the ooze, all was as he remembered it. Including his thoughts.

Rats, he knew, were more intelligent than humans gave them credit for, but he had been a genius among rats. Able to mimic his Master's movements and turn them into ninjutsu; able to feel a kind of loyalty and sense of family enough to have the desire to avenge his Master's death; able to plan ahead far enough to think of gathering up four baby turtles and taking them to his burrow where he would be well fed for days.

And this was the thing that made him wake, suddenly and sharply, breathing hard but not crying out, unable to go back to sleep and unable to forget the thought of eating his own sons.

He took another breath, and another, focusing, purging his mind of thoughts. When that did not work, he talked to himself in the privacy of his mind, telling himself that it was a perfectly natural thing for a rat to do, and that once he had awoken that next morning and the effects of the ooze had set in, he had never once thought of eating them again. Concepts like "child" and "protector" and even "father" began vying for space in his brain, and he was no longer an animal but a thinking, rational being.

He never dared to check on his sons after these dreams. Seeing them in the morning always brought with it a sense of normalcy, and he wanted to pretend that he was working himself up over nothing, that he did not need those extra hours of meditation to calm himself, that the dream did not bother him.

It was the only thing Splinter ever lied to himself about.


	2. Raphael, Donatello

_Forgot to credit Jaganashi's Favors of Fate for inspiring this._

* * *

"Donny, why won't you tell me?"

"Because it's Master Splinter's secret to tell, so stop asking me about it!"

Raph had never seen Donny so agitated. Leo probably hadn't either, but he kept pressing his brother anyway. Raph was this close to jumping in and telling Leo where to shove it, but Donny abruptly left the living room and went to the kitchen, possibly to fix something for Master Splinter to eat, but more likely to get away from Leo. Leo spoiled it by following him.

"What he said obviously bothered you a lot. If it was that bad, you should tell someone."

"That doesn't follow at all, Leonardo," Don said tiredly, without turning around. _Ooh._ Full name. This was good entertainment. Too bad Mikey was still as sick as Master Splinter and unable to appreciate the show. Leo sighed tiredly, as though Donny were the one being unreasonable. Raph knew his brother just couldn't stand to see the people he loved hurting, but that didn't give him an excuse to act like a prick. He stepped forward and gave his brother a light shove.

"Give it up, Leo."

Leo turned on him, and they began the argument Raph had expected. He hoped Don appreciated this.

* * *

Don tuned out the sound of his brothers' raised voices as he prepared broth for Splinter and Mikey. He did this on auto-pilot: open the can, pour it into the pot, turn on the stove, stand there and let it boil. Don't let your mind overwhelm you.

Too late.

_Five. There were five._ That was all he had whispered, feverish and unconscious, but it had been enough for Donny's fertile mind. He had followed the logic, come to the conclusion, and wondered if he could ever look his father in the face again.

That was stupid, of course he could. He still made Raph and Leo take the broth to the invalids, though he told himself (and them, rather louder) that it was to get them to stop arguing. Then he locked himself in his lab and didn't come out.

A fifth turtle. A lost brother—or sister. A possibility ended prematurely. An unknown. An x in the equation. A secret, long buried. A secret Don now knew.

It was entirely possible, Don mused as he mindlessly took apart a toaster, that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. A young turtle who had fallen into a sewer in a glass jar could have died in many ways. That the fall alone hadn't killed the four of them was extraordinary, and the fact that the broken glass hadn't either was a bit mysterious. That the ooze had helped rather than hindered was nothing short of miraculous. And how long had they been there before Splinter found them? Well, okay, not long enough for something else to have carried away a fifth turtle before Splinter got there. But perhaps he had only seen it happen from afar, and been unable to do anything about it. Perhaps he had come upon four healthy turtles and a fifth one damaged from the fall or impaled on a shard of glass. It was entirely possible.

But Don didn't think Splinter would have whispered the word _five_ so desperately and heartbrokenly if he had merely seen it crushed by the fall. And he had long known of Splinter's true intentions in gathering up the little reptiles and putting them in a coffee can. Had, even, (mostly) come to terms with it. But this… this was too much.

The toaster lay in pieces on the table in front of him, but where Don would normally begin putting it back together, symbolic, he knew, of his desire for the entire world to be that simple, this time he took the pieces of the now completely useless machine and smashed them all into scrap metal.


	3. Donatello, Michelangelo

"My… son…"

Despite very much not wanting to, Donatello forced himself to kneel by the bed where his father lay, still gripped by fever.

"Yes, father?"

"Where… is… my son? Where is…?" Delirium? That wasn't good. His brain automatically began running through the list of possible treatments while his mouth worked to calm him down.

"I'm right here, father."

"No, not…" The old rat thrashed weakly. "The fifth. Where is… Botticelli?"

Don went cold, his list forgotten. _He'd named it?_

"Botticelli, my son… where are you? I…"

He thrashed, with more force this time. Don couldn't calm him down. He could barely move. Splinter was trying to get up off the bed, looking for a son that wasn't there. Don knew he needed to be still and preserve his energy, or his condition might grow worse, but he couldn't seem to do anything. Finally, his gut roiling, Don found the strength to speak.

"I… I'm here, father. Botticelli. I'm… right here."

His father relaxed, head pressing down into the pillow, hands gripping Don's with a strength that surprised him.

"My son… my son, I am sorry."

"I-it's okay, father." It was a lie.

"Am I… raising your brothers well, my son?" Think about April, think about the Battle Shell, think about that list of possible treatments, _just don't think about what you have to do right now._

"Yes… father."

"I raise them… for you."

Don closed his eyes.

"I give them… everything… I did not… give you." Splinter made to sit up. Don couldn't even lift his arms to stop him. "Will you… watch over them? When they have returned to the land of their ancestors? I know I will not… be there… with them."

He got the words out thickly. "Yes, father."

The rat lay back, sighing, content.

"Good," he said. "That is good."

.|.

This time it was a TV.

* * *

Mike heard things.

He heard the door to the lab slam shut. He heard Donny smash the pieces of an entire television into smithereens. He heard the unintelligible mutters that accompanied the task.

He'd heard what Splinter said.

Mike ate when there was trouble that being a ninja could do nothing about. By the time Leo and Raph got home, he'd gone through all their chips, all their cookies, all their frozen pies, and was halfway through an entire box of saltines. By the time Leo pulled the box out of his unresisting hands, he'd been sick into a bowl three times. By the time Donny came out of the lab, Mike had almost convinced himself that nothing had happened.

But the look in Donny's eyes made him lean over the bowl a fourth time.


	4. Splinter, Donatello

The dream came more often now, now that his body was weak with illness and fever and fatigue. It seemed he lived half in the waking world and half in the dream. Gather up four turtles, take them back to the den, pick one up with tiny rat paws and turn it over and over, think long and hard about the best way to penetrate the hard shell and get at the tasty morsel inside.

Look up into the eyes of the fifth, and come to yourself with your son's head in your mouth.

Wake, breathing hard.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

* * *

Don couldn't stand it anymore.

"I'll be at April's," he informed his brothers. "Make sure Splinter is drinking all his broth. Call me if his condition changes."

"Donnie," Mike croaked. Don looked down at him. He looked terrible, and not just from the illness. "Take me with you?"

No joking about being a chaperone. No smiles. No laughter. Just the plea.

"Sure," Don said after a long moment. "Why not?"

Mike sighed in relief.

* * *

She didn't ask, and for that he was grateful. Maybe she just assumed it was for Mike's sake, who helped that assumption by breezing past her at the door and making it to the bathroom just in time to heave his breakfast all over the floor in front of the toilet. Don gave April a look of sympathy and apology, and she gave him a warm smile in return. Maybe she just assumed Don was tired of caring for his family, and he helped that assumption by collapsing on the couch beside Mike after cleaning up his puke and helping him rinse his mouth out. April put a blanket over both of them and smoothed their foreheads with her warm hand. Maybe she just assumed there was family trouble of some kind, and his other brothers helped that assumption by calling her a few hours later. He could tell by her tone that she was telling them not to come over, that she could take care of them, that everything would be fine and they'd come home when they were ready.

Most of all, though, he was grateful she didn't ask after Splinter. Because he knew his non-answer would destroy all her wonderful assumptions.


	5. Leonardo, Raphael, Leonardo

Leonardo knew something was wrong, knew it deep down in the same way he knew there was a Foot ninja behind him or one of his brothers was in mortal peril. But there was no enemy to fight. No threat to be neutralized. Just… tension.

Raph could feel it too, he knew. With Don and Mike out of the lair and Splinter still holed up in his room, ill, they spent hours sparring against each other, reading the lay of their muscles and the force behind their weapons like a medium might read tea leaves. Reading the fear in each other's eyes like a palmist reads a hand.

How do you read a hand with three fingers, or one covered in fur?

* * *

He felt him for the first time the night after Don left. The lair was as empty as it had ever been, and the astral plane, the world he went to in his mind, was as close as he had ever felt it. And suddenly there was a presence, like his brothers, but not one of his brothers. A turtle frozen in its transformation to a man. A fifth.

All he got was a brief impression before he snapped open his eyes, breathing hard but not crying out. Raph was calling him for dinner. A dinner he would eat, and then promptly throw up.

"I think I'm coming down with it too," he told Raph pathetically. It was a lie.

* * *

Raph wasn't stupid. He knew there was something going down, and he knew it had something to do with Splinter being sick. But Donnie would never have left if he'd been dying, would he? Splinter was going to be okay. He held onto that. His only worry right now was avoiding getting sick himself, since apparently Leo-Mr.-Supernatural-Immune-System-nardo had caught it too. He poured all his other worries, the ones he wouldn't let himself have, into the punching bag, and tried to ignore the creepy-crawly feeling of someone watching him.

* * *

He felt it again later that night, in the barrier between sleep and wakefulness. Just standing there. Watching him. It was almost comforting. This was an older brother, something he'd never had. A guardian who would watch over him.

But then the dream or the perception or whatever it was changed, and the guardian became a vengeful spirit, angry at him for some unknown slight, some crime committed or deed left undone. Leonardo cried out in his sleep. And Splinter woke up to himself for the first time in days.


	6. Splinter reprised

How could he have forgotten? How many times had Master Yoshi lit incense and said prayers in front of a picture of Tang Shen? How foolish of him, to have invented a fifth son, taken before his time, and then fail to erect a proper shrine for him.

With what little strength he could muster, Splinter gathered his children from their respective hiding places; Donatello and Michelangelo from April's, Leonardo from the bathroom, Raphael from the dojo, and Botticelli from his memory. He gathered his living sons around him and told them a familiar story, one they all knew by heart. But this time, he replaced that which had been taken out, found that which had been lost, and told the truth.


End file.
